June 22, 2010

what we talk about when we talk about talking about architecture

Allais: Architecture is such a good excuse to talk about so many things. Hyde: And why does it always end up being a discussion about architecture?

Taking a page out of Interview magazine, the new issue PRAXIS features architects in conversation with other architects. Editors Amanda Reeser Lawrence and Ashley Schafer have paired up some of the most emergent firms of the last five years—a group defined by Michael Meredith of MOS in his conversation with Marcelo Spina of PATTERNS as "the "practice" generation."

It's also a group that were able to delve into experimental practice, buoyed by ever-expanding digital tools, Ordos houses, and an economic bubble. Conversations: Continued, a symposium in celebration of the new issue at PS1 this Friday, comes at a time when all these small firms are coping, retrenching, and strategizing in a recession—basically, asking themselves what to do next?

I've been asked to join the dialogue at PS1 as a "provocateur", along with Keith Krumweide, Reinhold Martin, Kazys Varnelis, Michael Kubo, Enrique Walker, and Thomas de Monchaux. So, let's do the math: 11 architects, 2 editors, 2 critics, and 7 people with sharp tongues. It's gonna get loud.

Conversations: Continued

A Symposium & Open Discussion in conjunction with the release of PRAXIS 11 Architects + 12 Conversations

Friday - 25 June 2010

12.30-6pm at P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, Queens

The symposium marks the release of the 11 Architects + 12 Conversations issue of PRAXIS: a journal of writing and building. The moderated discussion will invite audience participation in an open dialogue that explores shared and contested territory among this emerging generation of practices.

The symposium, "Conversations: Continued", brings together 10 Young Architectural Practices: MOS, NArchitects, WORKac, PATTERNS, Aranda/Lasch, Productora, FAR, Ciro Najle, The Living, and Howeler +Yoon with two critics, Timothy Hyde and Lucia Allais. The event continues the more formal discussion begun in PRAXIS 11, 11 Architects/12 Conversations, by bringing the firms together in a shared conversation, broadening the issues at stake, and sharing the material with a wider architectural and public audience.

We will also take this occasion to celebrate the long anticipated 2010 PRAXIS 11+12 double issue release with cocktails and a preview of Solid Objectives - Idenburg Liu's Pole Dance, the winner of the MoMA/P.S.1 Young Architects Program.

For further information and schedule, please feel free to contact us or visit us online at: www.praxisjournal.net